Origin of Life News

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Feb. 27, 2015  DNA evidence shows surprise cultural connections between Britain and Europe 8,000 years ago. Researchers found evidence for a variety of wheat at a submerged archaeological site off the south coast ... full story

Feb. 24, 2015  A French-Kenyan research team has just described a new fossil ancestor of today's hippo family. This discovery bridges a gap in the fossil record separating these animals from their closest ... full story

Feb. 19, 2015  In one of the most comprehensive studies of body size evolution ever conducted, scientists have found fresh support for Cope's rule, a theory in biology that states that animal lineages tend to ... full story

Feb. 18, 2015  Since life originated on Earth between 3.8 and 3.9 Ga ago, microorganisms have significantly shaped and influenced the chemistry of Earth's surface and subsurface environments. Reconstructing the ... full story

Feb. 16, 2015  A spark from a lightning bolt, interstellar dust, or a subsea volcano could have triggered the very first life on Earth. But what happened next? Life can exist without oxygen, but without plentiful ... full story

Feb. 11, 2015  Researchers have identified a gene in Galαpagos finches studied by English naturalist Charles Darwin that influences beak shape and that played a role in the birds' evolution from a common ancestor. ... full story

Feb. 11, 2015  Researchers have found an RNA structure-based signal that spans billions of years of evolutionary divergence between different types of cells, according to a new study. The finding could alter the ... full story

Feb. 11, 2015  Bird species have adapted to so many ecological niches in large part because of the variety of ways feathers lend them a competitive advantage. New research shows that one key to the feather's ... full story

Feb. 9, 2015  A perfectly preserved amber fossil from Myanmar has been found that provides evidence of the earliest grass specimen ever discovered -- about 100 million years old -- and even then it was topped by a ... full story

Feb. 6, 2015  Evolutionary researchers have determined that settling for 'Mr. Okay' is a better evolutionary strategy than waiting for 'Mr. Perfect.' When studying the evolution of risk aversion using a ... full story

Featured Videos

Ancient Tablets Reveal Life of Jews in Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon

Reuters - Light News Video Online (Feb. 3, 2015)  A Jerusalem museum puts tablets dating back to 500-600 BC on display for the first time in an exhibition that reveals the life of Judeans in ancient Babylon. Tara Cleary reports.
Video provided by Reuters

Raw: X-Ray Unlocks Secrets of Ancient Scroll

AP (Jan. 20, 2015)  Scientists have succeeded in reading parts of an ancient scroll that was buried in a volcanic eruption almost 2,000 years ago, holding out the promise that the world&apos;s oldest surviving library may one day reveal all of its secrets. (Jan. 20)
Video provided by AP

Explaining How We Differ From Our Closest Ape Relatives

FORA.tv (Dec. 22, 2014)  Explaining How We Differ From Our Closest Ape Relatives
California Academy of Sciences - Cal Academy of Sciences
Walking upright on two legs is the hallmark of the human lineage. Understanding when and how we made the transition to this unique way of moving about the world is key to deciphering how, and why, we evolved. Scientists have traditionally studied hands, feet, arms and legs to understand animal movement, but primates differ in body shape as much as they do in their limbs, and this is related to the ways they are designed to move about the world - whether they hold their bodies upright or horizontally, whether they hang below branches in the trees or walk above them on all fours, and more. Over the past few decades, more bones associated with the trunk, including ribs, pelves and vertebrae, have been discovered for fossil hominins and our relatives, shedding new light on the evolution of body form in apes and humans. In addition, new 3D computer technologies allow us to study these fossils in new ways. These new insights into the evolution of human body form paint a striking new picture of the transition from ape to hominin, leading to a whole new way of thinking about our origins.
Video provided by FORA.tv

Feb. 27, 2015  DNA evidence shows surprise cultural connections between Britain and Europe 8,000 years ago. Researchers found evidence for a variety of wheat at a submerged archaeological site off the south coast ... full story

Feb. 25, 2015  Evolution is change, and not always for the better. Evolution, in fact, is at the core of many of the diseases that are hardest to treat. Pathogens such as bacteria and parasites evade their host’s ... full story

Feb. 24, 2015  A French-Kenyan research team has just described a new fossil ancestor of today's hippo family. This discovery bridges a gap in the fossil record separating these animals from their closest ... full story

Feb. 19, 2015  In one of the most comprehensive studies of body size evolution ever conducted, scientists have found fresh support for Cope's rule, a theory in biology that states that animal lineages tend to ... full story

Feb. 18, 2015  Since life originated on Earth between 3.8 and 3.9 Ga ago, microorganisms have significantly shaped and influenced the chemistry of Earth's surface and subsurface environments. Reconstructing ... full story

Feb. 16, 2015  A spark from a lightning bolt, interstellar dust, or a subsea volcano could have triggered the very first life on Earth. But what happened next? Life can exist without oxygen, but without plentiful ... full story

Feb. 11, 2015  Researchers have identified a gene in Galαpagos finches studied by English naturalist Charles Darwin that influences beak shape and that played a role in the birds' evolution from a common ... full story

Feb. 11, 2015  Researchers have found an RNA structure-based signal that spans billions of years of evolutionary divergence between different types of cells, according to a new study. The finding could alter the ... full story

Feb. 11, 2015  Bird species have adapted to so many ecological niches in large part because of the variety of ways feathers lend them a competitive advantage. New research shows that one key to the feather's ... full story

Feb. 9, 2015  A perfectly preserved amber fossil from Myanmar has been found that provides evidence of the earliest grass specimen ever discovered -- about 100 million years old -- and even then it was topped by a ... full story

Feb. 6, 2015  Evolutionary researchers have determined that settling for 'Mr. Okay' is a better evolutionary strategy than waiting for 'Mr. Perfect.' When studying the evolution of risk ... full story

Feb. 4, 2015  The early evolutionary history of monkeys in South America is cloaked in mystery. Long thought to have journeyed from Africa, evidence for this hypothesis was difficult to support without fossil ... full story

Feb. 3, 2015  The greatest absence of evolution ever reported has been discovered by an international group of scientists: a type of deep-sea microorganism that appears not to have evolved over more than 2 billion ... full story

Feb. 2, 2015  A specific mechanism by which a parent can pass silenced genes to its offspring has been uncovered by researchers for the first time. Importantly, the team found that this silencing could persist for ... full story

Feb. 2, 2015  Humans have fewer remnants of viral DNA in their genes compared to other mammals, a new study has found. This decrease could be because of reduced exposure to blood-borne viruses as humans evolved to ... full story

Jan. 30, 2015  The close of the Permian Period around 250 million years ago saw Earth's biggest extinction ever. At this time large volcanic eruptions were occurring in what is now Siberia. The volcanoes ... full story

Jan. 29, 2015  A study of gene regulation in 20 mammals provides new insights into how species diverged millions of years ago. The findings demonstrate how methods and tools for genetic analysis of humans and mice ... full story

Jan. 29, 2015  Large-scale genetic changes that marked the evolution of pregnancy in mammals have been identified by an international team of scientists. They found thousands of genes that evolved to be expressed ... full story

Jan. 28, 2015  Genetic variations associated with some modern maladies are extremely old, scientists have discovered, predating the evolution of Neanderthals, Denisovans (another ancient hominin) and contemporary ... full story

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